


How to Talk to Angels

by Zab43



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel/Demon Relationship, Angels Can’t Lurk, Comedy, Dating Advice, Demons Aren't Nice, Double Dating, Established Relationship, Even When They Try, Even When They Want To, Fluff and Humour, Killing Lobsters, Ligur Lives (Good Omens), Lobsters, M/M, Mention of boiling people, Romantic Fluff, re-established relationship, romantic dinners, …but still comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29216805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zab43/pseuds/Zab43
Summary: Hastur lurks outside the bookshop, but to what purpose?Ligur lives(!), but how is he getting on as an angel?Aziraphale and Crowley are an established couple, but can they give relationship advice?Will the newly separated Hastur and Ligur be reunited?….and why doesn’t Crowley like seafood?The answers are all to be found here!
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley & Hastur (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Ligur (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Hastur/Ligur (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36
Collections: Rare Omens





	1. A Dark & Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> A silly idea that was meant to be a short little one-shot but grew in the telling. I’m airing my obsession with reuniting Hastur and Ligur again and throwing in a bit of comedy too (hopefully I’ve pulled it off!) Trying to Join this onto the Rare Omens in the hope this meets not only Hastur/Ligur (who I really don’t want to admit are rare) but also Aziraphale & Non-Crowley Demon…at a stretch?…. He does have friendly scenes with Hastur and with the demon-formerly-known-as Ligur?? Sorry if it's not quite right
> 
> Readers/kudos/comments are always appreciated.

It was a dark and stormy night. The Demon lurking in the alleyway approved of the atmospheric setting. He was less approving of the way the water seemed to run down the back of his neck and somehow find a path all the way down to the insides of his boots.

He also failed to approve of the fact that the ‘dark’ part of ‘dark and stormy’ meant it was difficult to see who was entering or leaving the bookshop, especially when all the humans seemed to have umbrellas. He concluded that ‘dark and stormy’ was all very well for story books, but he’d prefer a relatively mild night, with light cloud and a nice bright moon to see by. He sighed, longing for the darkness and storminess to bugger off so he had a chance to dry out.

In the bookshop was another demon. He was not lurking. He was in fact drinking steadily and had been doing so for some hours. He was currently remonstrating loudly on the subject of the demon lurking in the alleyway opposite whom he, and his companion, had been watching for some time now.

Crowley, for that was the demon’s name, finished up angrily “they’re meant to be leaving us alone that’s all”.

His companion was naturally the more tolerant of the pair, which was understandable given his angelic nature. Actually, scrap that, angels are some of the most intolerant beings around. Aziraphale was more tolerant because he happened to be a nice angel, or a nice entity in general.

Crowley was not a nice demon, not because of any inherent characteristics of his own, but simply because demons were not nice. It was a rule. He was beginning to suspect he might be the unfortunate exception that proved the rule, but didn’t want to think about that just now.

Aziraphale said wistfully “I wonder what he wants”

“Why don’t you go and ask him?” his companion answered sarcastically, then seeing that he was about to go and do just that added “alright I’ll go”.

Outside Hastur hastily threw away the dog-end he’d been smoking, as he saw the door to the shop opening. This was it. As he stepped back into the alleyway so his quarry didn’t see him he bumped ever so slightly into a drainpipe and sent a deluge of water pouring down over his already soaked body.

He sighed again, his feet squelching in their soaked boots. It hadn’t even worked as Crowley had obviously seen him and was headed straight over. He was walking with a particularly irritating swagger, all the while grinning in a particularly irritating manner. Hastur thought briefly about setting him on fire, remembered Beelzebub’s injunction to ‘leave him alone’, and reluctantly parked the thought.

Crowley held a folded newspaper over his head, which seemed to be miraculously stopping all of the rain from reaching any part of him. “wotcha” he said in a particularly irritating way. Hastur growled at him. Crowley, obviously feeling the burden of conversation was on him, continued “anything I can do for you?”

“If you could just die that would be a start” Hastur offered mournfully.

Crowley shook his head tutting slightly “now that’s not very nice, you’ve been stood here for hours and that’s all you have to say for yourself, come on, what do you really want?”

The other demon took a deep breath, he might as well get it over with he thought “I want your h…”. He stopped. When it came to it did he really want Crowley’s help? Couldn’t he find another way round this?

He’d already thought this one through, many times, and had reluctantly come to the conclusion that he couldn’t do without it, so forced himself to continue. Not wanting to start the whole sentence all over again he just picked up where he left off: “…elp”.

Crowley was confused for a moment, until he remembered this was Hastur he was talking to. He took the time to piece together the two parts of his speech and managed to make a sentence that made sense, or at least it would have made sense if he hadn’t known who was speaking. “You want my help?!” he said disbelievingly.

The tall demon shuffled his feet then glared at him in an alarming way shouting “yes” and again stopping. Crowley waited in case there was more, but there didn’t seem to be

He decided to be reasonable “better come in then” he offered waving vaguely towards the bookshop and affecting a casual saunter in its general direction. After a moments hesitation the other demon followed him.

Inside was warm, dry and light. In short everything Hastur had been missing whilst standing in the rain. He was suspicious. When he saw the angel he was even more suspicious. “What’s he doin’ here?” he grunted at Crowley.

“This happens to be my bookshop. A better question would be what are you doing here” Aziraphale answered primly. Hastur jumped slightly at being addressed by an angel and looked somewhat helplessly at Crowley.

“Apparently he wants my help, although I don’t know what with” prompted Crowley looking pointedly at Hastur.

“Its a demon thing” he said still eyeing the angel warily “dunt wanna talk to him”nodding in Aziraphale’s direction.

“You had better go back outside then” replied the angel, but when it looked like both demons would simply up and leave he relented slightly “you could talk in the back I suppose”.

Crowley shepherded the very damp demon into the back room of the bookshop and turned to face him. “So, exactly what do you want help with?” he asked in a less than welcoming voice.

Hastur looked unsure of himself and, instead of answering the question, asked one of his own. “Why you in an angel’s bookshop then?”

“None of your business. Look, you lot are meant to be leaving me alone. What are you doing here and what do you want? Tell me or, or, well” Crowley floundered finishing up somewhat lamely “or I’ll do something you won’t like” thinking this needed stiffening up a bit he added “something you really won’t like” with a bit of a leer. Crowley wasn’t a natural at leering so it came out more like a cross between a sneer and a smirk. A snerk maybe.

The tall demon squinted, wondering why he was snerking at him, “told you, need your help” he explained.

Crowley sighed and looked defeated for a second or two. Clearly he hadn’t got the hang of this intimidation lark. The other demon just looked confused. He thought it could just be that Hastur was not bright enough to identify his somewhat ambiguous words as a threat. He tried again “you wouldn’t want something nasty to happen, now would you?” he asked with another snerk.

By now the other demon was thoroughly confused, between the odd expressions and the unfathomable words he was starting to feel dizzy. He answered as best he could “yes, I like it when nasty things happen. What were you thinking of?”

“let’s start again” offered Crowley, ignoring Hastur’s confused look he asked “what do you want help with?”

“It’s to do wiv angels” was the terse reply.

“Why is every conversation with you like pulling teeth?” came the exasperated response.

The tall demon looked much cheered by these words saying happily “I like pulling teeth”.

“No, not real teeth. Never mind” he added before Hastur had a chance to think about this “don’t you think you’d better tell me the whole story?”

“It’s Ligur” started Hastur and Crowley immediately began backing off stuttering a half apology half excuse, but the other demon continued “he’s back, but its ,well, its like he’s an angel now. I don’t know anything about angels - need your help”.

This was a little different to what Crowley had envisaged. Being honest with himself he had actually got no experience of talking to angels outside of his particular angel. Remembering his trip to heaven disguised as his particular angel, and the events that unfolded there, he didn’t think his angel was very typical of angels in general.

He wasn’t sure what to say. While he’d been thinking this the other demon had maintained a steady eye contact, a hideously unbecoming look on his face.

Hastur was trying to look appealing. It wasn’t something he’d tried before, looking appealing had never been a requirement in Hell, and he hadn’t quite pulled it off. He mainly looked confused, but as he quite often looked confused this didn’t really matter.

“What do you mean an angel? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone less angelic” spluttered Crowley, then remembering to whom he was talking to added “present company excepted”. Hastur seemed pleased with the compliment.

“Yeah, when the little Antichrist reset things he seems to have reset Ligur as an angel for some reason” he tried to explain.

“Can’t he just, y’know, be his natural self for a bit and, well, they’ll soon kick him out of heaven if he does that” suggested Crowley hoping this would be an end to it.

“Nah, they’re not letting anyone fall at the moment. Apparently he already tried it an’ even when it got really messy they said they wasn’t going to let Hell get the advantage” Hastur said sadly. Crowley didn’t want to think about what ‘messy’ activities the new angel had been getting up to.

They heard a cough from the doorway. It was the angel. Hastur predictably jumped a mile and let out a very loud shriek. “Wass he doin here?” he said as he finally got himself under control.

“I told you this is my shop and to be honest I think any conversation you have with my partner ought to include me” answered the angel in an exasperated tone.

“Partner!?” Hastur half screeched.

Crowley tried the leer/snerk again saying “yeah that’s right: *partner*. What you gonna do about it?”

The tall demon scrunched up his face in concentration. What was he going to do about it? Actually, did he need to do anything about it?

Always one to shirk work if he could, he threw out the challenge “ain’t gonna do anythin’ about it, an’ you can’t make me”. He leered, a real leer. Hastur was good at leering.

The angel was also confused: “I really cannot imagine why Crowley would want you to do anything dear boy”.

Crowley sighed, this was getting silly. “Look Hastur, I have no idea what you think I can do about all this. I can’t make Ligur a demon again now can I? How exactly do you expect me to help?”

Hastur took this as a victory, his fellow demon was asking how he could help. That was good. He grinned happily. After a while he realised both the angel and the demon were looking at him expectantly. They seemed to be expecting him to think of something. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like thinking, it made his head hurt.

“Dunno” he answered sulkily.

“Oh, just go away will you? I can’t help. Aziraphale can’t help. You’re just gonna have to figure it out by yourself”. Exclaimed Crowley.

Hastur whined “I don’t know nuffin’ about angels. He’s all glowy and Beelzebub says he keeps tryin’ to be ‘nice’” (the word tasted unpleasant on his tongue). He carried on “and he can’t lurk!” As if this were the most heinous of faults.

Aziraphale looked on fascinated as Hastur, Duke of Hell, tried his ‘appealing’ look again. Feeling he needed to intervene before Crowley threw him out he said “there’s nothing you can do about the ‘being nice’ thing, that’s what us angel are: nice. Well, maybe not Gabriel… and um, I’ve got some doubts about Michael too actually…”

Hastur was grinning by now “so you’re not all nice then?”

Aziraphale looked a little upset, but admitted “I suppose not. Not really, that is. I mean Crowley here was always saying I was… well, I won’t repeat…”

“A bit of a bastard…” Crowley muttered.

Hastur snapped his head round and glared at the demon “what you call me?” he snarled.

“Not you dear boy, in point of fact I believe he meant me! The cheek of it!”

Aziraphale did, in fact, look very pleased with Crowley’s words. Somehow, despite being an angel of undoubted good character and kindly disposition, he liked to think that he was also a bit of a … ‘rogue’ is probably the word he would use, not being a fan of swearing.

The tall demon was taken off guard a little by being addressed as ‘dear boy’. He turned to face the angel and scrunched up his face in concentration.

“You’m an angel ain’t ya?” He wanted to be clear on this point. The obvious waft of holy energy, and the angelic looks, not being quite enough to make him certain. It took a lot for Hastur to be certain about something. Hell taught you to be highly suspicious of everything and everyone.

“Oh, well, yes, yes, of course I am. I think. Crowley dear, what do you think?”

The snake-demon nodded his head solemnly “definitely an angel” he pronounced with a smile at his companion.

“How do I talk to you then?” Hastur asked in a weird cross between curious appeal and angry challenge.

“I believe you are talking to me right now, aren’t you?” Aziraphale was confused.

“Yeah, but y’know. If I wanted to carry on talking to you, like more than just asking how to talk to you. What would I say?” This was getting too confusing. Hastur was considering leaving, he didn’t like confusing, it wasn’t his thing.

“Oh, you mean what do I like to talk about? There’s books of course, and, well, lots of things actually. Have you tried sushi?” Seeing the tall demon’s look of confusion he hurried on “or any seafood really, what about lobster?”

Hastur was shaking his head a genuinely confused look on his face. This whole talking to an angel thing was clearly very difficult. It seemed to require a lot of knowledge he simply didn’t possess. He tried his hardest not to set fire to anything, feeling this would be a bad move. Instead he asked “what’s a lobster?”

Aziraphale hadn’t, honestly hadn’t, planned for Hastur to ask that question, but seeing as he had, well it would be rude not to answer it. “Why don’t I show you, we can go for dinner at that lovely little seafood place - I was telling you about it Crowley, do you remember?”

Crowley glared at Aziraphale “…I remember saying I didn’t want to go. You know how I feel about seafood - all those eyes looking at you from the plate, gives me the creeps”.

“Oh but my dear, poor Hastur here needs our help and it would be so rude not to at least try to help him and I certainly don’t feel a verbal explanation of a lobster will quite suffice will it?” There was a twinkle in his eye. He had clearly decided that, whatever Hastur’s or Crowley’s preference in the matter he was going out for dinner and taking one or both of them with him.

The snake-demon glared at Hastur in a ‘I’d like to kill you’ sort of way that the other demon was very familiar with. Well, so long as he was annoying someone else, he was happy. He smiled in a way that showed off too many teeth that were just a little too sharp.

“Why don’t you ask your friend the angel to come too?” Crowley asked in a snide manner, feeling that if he was to suffer an unwanted seafood dinner then someone else should be dragged along too.

Hastur panicked “I don’t have friends. Demons aren’t friendly. Besides I can’t ask him to dinner! What if he says no?!”

“I’m sure an angel would never be so rude as to just say ‘no’ - come on let’s find him and you can ask”.

Hastur was looking more panicked at this “I dunno where to find ‘im. He’s an angel. How’s I meant to find angels? ‘an even if I finds ‘im what am I meant to do then? I can’t just ‘talk to him’ that’s why I’m here - I need heeeelp!”

The last word was a wail, but Aziraphale was confused “but you must have talked to him before surely?”

“Not as an angel. Angels dunt talk to demons, they dunt like ‘em. He doesn’t like me”. There was a half-choked off sob at the end of the sentence that immediately got Aziraphale’s sympathy.

“How do you know he doesn’t like you if you’ve not even talked to him?”

Hastur looked shifty. Actually he always looked shifty, so it would be more accurate to say he looked *more* shifty. He mumbled something that neither of the other two could hear.

Crowley was still feeling impatient from earlier “spit it out!” he demanded.

The tall demon looked surprised, but then spat neatly on the rug in front of him. Whatever he had spat out opened its eyes and blinked at them, then, realising it was free, made a dash for the nearest bookcase and hid behind it.

The snake demon rolled his eyes, “not literally! I meant: tell us how you know Ligur doesn’t like you if you’ve not talked to him, and tell us now!”

Hastur sighed. “I asked Beelzebub to ask Gabriel to tell Ligur I wanted to see him”.

“Oh” Crowley was a little stunned - why would anyone trust Beelzebub to pass on a message? “What did Beelzebub tell you he’d said?”

“Nuffin. When I asked what he said Beelzebub said Gabriel said nuffin’ - so that means he dunt want to see me”. Their guest looked genuinely distressed at this.

“How do you know they even spoke to him?” Aziraphale asked curiously, having by now learned quite a lot about demons and their desire to be seen as untrustworthy, as well as knowing Gabriel fairly well. He wasn’t the sort to pass on messages from demons.

The taller demon, however, didn’t seem to have thought of this. “Y’mean they might have lied about it?” He asked as if the very idea was scandalising - a demon lie!! surely not. Then he smiled. It was an unfortunate smile, it made him look like he’d swallowed something rather unpleasant and was trying hard not to show it.

“So…if they lied then maybe he doesn’t hate me… so….” they could virtually hear the cogs turning in Hastur’s head “…so maybe he does wanna talk to me!” He finished triumphantly. Following it up quickly with another more typically paranoid thought “but if he wants to talk to me how come he hasn’t?”

Aziraphale pointed out mildly “well you haven’t tried to talk to him have you?”

Immediately on the defensive Hastur replied “I sent a message, what more can I do? I can’t talk to angels, wouldn’t know where to start. Only angel I ever spoke to is Michael and that was just to insult her”.

“You’re talking to *my* angel right now. Talking a blessed sight too much in fact. Why don’t you go away?” The irritableness had not left the snake demon who was also, truth be told, getting slightly jealous of the time Aziraphale was spending talking to the wholly unpleasant smelling demon.

He carried on “why don’t you go and find *your* angel and leave mine alone?”

“How?”

It was a fair question, but one that Aziraphale had an answer for. “I’ll pass a message on, you can trust me. I’m an angel”.

The demon shuffled his feet for a while, then said “go on then” but made no move to leave.

Crowley almost screamed at him “you got what you came for. Go. Now!!”

Hastur was nothing if not tenacious “only said he’d pass a message on. Well he’s gotta do it now ain’t he? Can’t go ‘til he’s done it. How’s I to know he really done it if I just go?”

An abundance of suspicion had replaced the previous ‘trusting Beelzebub and Gabriel to pass on a message’. To be fair, from the demonic point of view, it was reasonable: you shouldn’t trust anyone in Hell… or out of Hell really, just generally don’t trust anyone.

Aziraphale sighed and agreed he would go now to pass on the message.


	2. Time For Some Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries his hand at ‘helping’ Hastur with some dating advice…. and Aziraphale finds himself doing the same with Ligur.

The angel having departed, that left Crowley and Hastur alone in the shop. The redhead had hoped to ignore his fellow and wandered off to get some wine, pointedly not offering any to the other demon.

The tall demon waited patiently while his erstwhile compatriot poured himself wine and sat down. He had busied himself with his phone and was quite obviously in the middle of something when Hastur cut in. “Assuming he does want to talk to me, how do I do it?”

Crowley lowered his phone and glared at the other demon from over the top of his dark glasses. After a while it appeared the glare wasn’t having the desired effect so he tried a sneer and almost pulled it off. Still the other demon kept staring at him, fixing on a spot just about where his left ear was. This could go on for hours.

Hastur didn’t have any qualms about staring. He did it a lot. If he was interested in something or someone he could stare at them for days. No matter how much you tried to ignore it, you could feel that stare following you round wherever you went. Crowley shifted uncomfortably in his seat and the stare moved slightly to cover his shoulder and the top part of his jacket.

“Don’t stare for a start” he advised and tried to go back to his phone. He was uncomfortably aware that the frog-demon - and his frog for that matter - hadn’t given up staring at him. It was very disconcerting.

Eventually he looked up “you wanna know how to talk to angels?” he asked in a resigned way. This confused Hastur who thought he’d made it perfectly clear that that was what he wanted from the start. He nodded - clearly his fellow demon wasn’t very bright.

Crowley watched the thought lazily skipping across Hastur’s mind before he continued. “For a start you’ve got to find something to talk about. What does Ligur like?”

“I dunno, angel stuff I guess”. Hastur wasn’t sure what ‘angel stuff’ was - that was why he’d gone to see Crowley in the first place. He threw the question back to his fellow demon: “what do angels like?”

Crowley suddenly realised he was entirely ill equipped to answer that question. His angel, the only angel he’d ever talked to, had obvious and defined tastes. He liked books, especially ones about prophesy, he unfortunately liked tartan, but he also liked music and wine and most of all food. He wasn’t sure whether these were things angels in general liked though.

“How about when you meet him you ask him what he likes and then talk about it?” Crowley was proud of that suggestion, it put the onus back on Hastur to make the effort.

Hastur, however, looked aghast “I can’t just, y’know, ask him things. Ask an angel something? What if he smites me?”

“You’ve got to make a good impression then. Look the part, not like a demon. Look at me, I look great, even angels want to talk to me. Look at you, you’re all… scruffy and dirty and eugh. You need new clothes, neat hair…. and a wash!”

The other demon was already shaking his head. The idea of washing! Well, it didn’t bear thinking about. Crowley, however, had adopted a malicious look. He shrugged and yawned and said “up to you I guess. If you don’t want to talk to him….”

Hastur was defeated “are you sure? Hair, clothes, a wash”. He’d started to sound more enthusiastic now, like he really believed what the demon was telling him “what else?” 

The snake-demon couldn’t hide his look of triumph. He rapidly tried to banish it with a helpful smile, that came off as more malicious enjoyment than any real good humour. “You probably need to try and be more like an angel. Y’know, things like being polite, giving compliments and whatnot, buying presents, doing good deeds and things like that”.

“I’m a demon, I don’t do polite. Good deeds: for Satan’s sake Crowley, who do you think I am?! I wouldn’t know where to start!”

“You’re going to need to learn if you want to talk to angels!”

Hastur huffed in irritation and then began pacing the bookshop muttering “being polite….bloody *good* deeds indeed…compliments!!”

Aziraphale walked into the scene and looked over at his demon partner, slouched on the sofa, grinning to himself, and scrolling through various news stories on his phone. He was up to something. The angel wasn’t sure what, but there was certainly something…

“We’re all having dinner tomorrow night” Aziraphale announced, looking pleased with himself for arranging this.

“What?!” shouted Hastur.

“Dinner, tomorrow, 7pm. Come here for 6:30 and we’ll all walk round together”. He’d barely finished the sentence when the demon ran out of the shop.

“What was that all about dear?”

Crowley shrugged and gazed at the angel with a would-be innocent look in his serpent eyes, a slight smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

Aziraphale knew, just knew, there was something behind that wide-eyed, butter-wouldn’t-melt expression, but couldn’t help smiling back at the demon.

“Forget about him angel, lets have some wine”

With that suggestion the angel did forget all about Hastur and his ‘talking to angels’ problem and settled down with his own demon for a drink and a nice chat. He could not quite banish thoughts of his conversation with the angelic part of the former demon couple though.

Ligur.

He had headed up to Heaven to look for the newly minted angel. At first he didn’t have much luck, but then he heard a commotion: a crash followed by some hastily suppressed swearing. He followed the noise and found the former demon looking dejected with torn trousers and a bruise coming up on the side of his face. An abandoned segway-hoverboard thing - Aziraphale was never sure what they were called - leaned up against the wall next to him.

“Errr, so sorry to bother you. I hope you’re alright” the angel ground to a halt as the former demon looked up at him. His eyes were slightly red and his face had damp trails as if he’d been crying. He wiped his face, catching the bruise and grimacing slightly.

“I’m fine. Just blessed fine, sitting on this cloud thinking about watching the Sound of Music *again*. What could be better”. Ligur’s voice was bleak, flat and devoid of real emotion. He most certainly was not ‘fine’.

Aziraphale was unsure where to start. He composed his thoughts and decided to take the other angel’s protestation of fineness at face value for now. He adopted a jolly sounding voice. “Oh that’s good, I’m so glad you’re settling in. It *is* pretty here isn’t it? So much nicer than Hell, the smell for a start and no leaks!”

He stopped, remembering he wasn’t meant to know what Hell was like. He also noted that Ligur had put his head in his hands and started shaking slightly, as if he was crying. Actually he was crying, there was no two ways about it. He wasn’t sure what to do so he dithered, wringing his hands and wishing ardently he’d paid more attention to how humans dealt with this sort of thing.

After a few moments shaking, Ligur seemed to pull himself together again. He looked up at the angel and tried to answer in a similarly jolly voice.

“Oh yes, it’s very pretty up here. All the clean stuff and look at the view” he gestured vaguely towards a window not looking where he was pointing. “So *nice* not to be in Hell, an’ they clearly don’t want me back anyway. No-one’s even tried to talk to me from there… no-one”. He started crying again.

Aziraphale saw an opening “Oh actually, I have, well in point of fact, I came here because I have a message from Hell. Well, from someone in Hell, someone who *was* in Hell anyway. He’s actually in my shop at the moment but you see…” he tailed off as Ligur’s gaze intensified.

“Who? How? How’d he get into your shop?”

“Oh, um, he’s clearly a wily fiend. Clever, y’know and so determined. I couldn’t turn him away. Divine powers not quite up to it y’know? Must be a very powerful demon…”

The stream of words was interrupted “who?”

“Duke, um, Hastur?” He asked the angel formerly known as Duke Ligur.

A wide smile lit up the new angel’s face, quickly followed by a scowl. He looked down and started picking at the threads around the rip in his trousers. “Wanted to insult me I suppose, calling me names was he?”

“Oh no! No, no, nothing like that. Nothing at all. Dear boy!” There was a real sympathy in Aziraphale’s words underlaid with a certain defensiveness. The very idea that he’d come up to Heaven to pass on demonic insults! He wasn’t sure whether to be offended or reassuring.

“He wanted to invite you to meet us. To meet him that is. Dinner, tomorrow evening? There’s a very nice little seafood place, I’m sure you’d like it. They’ve got this wonderful lobster dish on the menu, with breadcrumbs and a sauce to die for… figuratively speaking naturally”.

Ligur was looking at him in disbelief. “Hastur wants to eat lobster? In a restaurant?”

Aziraphale shuffled uncomfortably. He didn’t want to lie, but felt admitting Hastur didn’t even know what a lobster was, let alone wanting to eat one, wouldn’t improve his companion’s mood. He obfuscated. “He wants to meet you”.

A look of panic distorted the new angel’s features “but he’s a demon! He’s evil.”

“He certainly smells that way” murmured the angel, luckily the comment was ignored.

“I don’t know how to talk to demons. What would I say?”

Aziraphale sighed. It was Hastur all over again. What could he suggest? How did you talk to demons come to that. He knew how to talk to his demon, but not the others. He’d only ever seen other demons at the trial and it wasn’t like they had had time for any friendly chit-chat. He considered.

“You were a demon. You must remember what you talked about then?”

“Lurkin’ and killin’ and fires and stuff” mumbled Ligur.

“Well then, can’t you just talk about those things again?”

“Not meant to be burnin’ stuff now I’m an angel am I? No killin’ neither, an’ I can’t even lurk - it’s the glowing - look at me. Blessed hopeless ain’t it?”

Ligur was indeed glowing, a pretty white-ish blue with the occasional speckle of gold or ripple of green. Aziraphale watched fascinated. No other angel did that. “Oh that’s lovely my dear, so pretty!” He smiled happily and waved a hand through the border of other angel’s colourful aura, watching as the movement created waves of pale gold colour in response.

“No good for lurkin’ though is it?” He said gloomily.

“There must be other things to talk about? Surely?”

“You talk to that Crawly don’t ya?” He looked the angel up and down disapprovingly “there’s no way you could lurk neither. How’d you get ‘im to like you?”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure about that. He felt like he’d just been himself and the demon had approved. Perhaps it was just the camaraderie of being the only two immortal beings who spent all of their time on earth. He didn’t think so though.

Possibly the shared appreciation of good wine, or the lovely little restaurants he’d taken him to. More likely it was the rambling, drunken conversations, the shared jokes and interest in humanity and their clever little inventions. Although they liked different things about humans they both liked them. It was a common interest. That was it!

“You must have some things in common…” he suggested hesitantly.

“Like what? Hastur kills things, and sets them on fire, and kills them by setting them on fire. He lurks in abandoned graveyards and scares the Heaven out of people. I can’t do none of that no more”.

“That’s more work than anything else though isn’t it? What did he do in his spare time, any hobbies?” Aziraphale asked desperately.

Ligur screwed up his face in concentration and tried to remember other things his demon-partner had enjoyed doing when he wasn’t killing things. “He liked insulting everyone, sometimes he grew interesting fungi in his hair too, and he breeds flesh-eating maggots” he eventually suggested.

That wasn’t very promising, but the angel put a brave face on it “perhaps you could ask him about the maggots? Or the insults - you could come up with some new insults for him”.

“He won’t wanna talk to me will he? Look at me - all glowin’ and clean and being ‘nice’ all the time. I’m everything he hates. I don’t even smell!”

Ah-ha - that at least was something he could help with. “Well, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you get some new clothes…” He saw he was about to be interrupted so quickly corrected himself “some *old* clothes, ones that… errm… ‘smell’ and you could practise not being so nice”.

Ligur looked confused “but I’m an angel - that’s what we are: *nice*” he spat the word out contemptuously.

Aziraphale shook his head decisively “not all angels are nice - it’s just a matter of practise. You can be a bully like Gabriel saying rude things and even… even *swearing*!” He said this like it completely shocked him, forgetting of course that he did, from time to time, swear himself. If he was honest he would admit that he actually enjoyed the occasional use of more colourful language, it offered a release that saying ‘bother’ just didn’t give.

He overrode the introspection: “you can scowl and insult people just like a demon. It’s just a matter of practise. I’m sure you can do it”. He’d never personally tried being rude and insulting on purpose. He thought he’d managed to be rude accidentally, or as a matter of necessity - like throwing people out of the bookshop when they got too close to trying to buy something, or deliberately not asking someone if they wanted a second cup of tea when he wanted them to leave.

The former demon had gained a hopeful look so he carried on “there’s no reason angel’s have to be ‘nice’ all the time, in fact Crowley always said I could be a bit… ahem…” He looked about himself theatrically, as if frightened someone may overhear then hissed: “a bit of a bastard”. His cheeks flushed a delicate pink and he hastened to contrive a shocked expression.

Ligur wasn’t watching. He was following the train of thought and the hopeful look seemed more settled. He said slowly “so if I practise being mean and nasty and insulting people and wear smelly old clothes, then he’ll like me?”

Aziraphale was far from certain that it would work, but didn’t want to disappoint the tearful angel with his puppy-dog eyes and flashing aura suddenly full of glittery, golden sparkles. “Oh yes, I’m sure that will work”. He smiled widely to hide his uncertainty.

“Why don’t you do that, and then we can all go for dinner and you two can talk…” He overrode the panicked look on Ligur’s face. “Tomorrow evening. Yes. I know a lovely little place, been meaning to go there myself actually. Let’s all go. Here, I’ll give you the address - 7pm ok?”

“I’ll be there - 7pm” affirmed the former demon. Then he frowned as if concentrating very hard. “I should be late shouldn’t I? Being on time is polite isn’t it?”

“Ummm, yes I suppose” Aziraphale was unsure about this plan, but it showed the former demon was trying and he didn’t want to put him off.

“7:15 then!” Ligur said triumphantly, a big smile lighting up his face. He bounded off, presumably to find some dirty old clothes and practise being rude and insulting people.


	3. The Date…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now for ‘the date’ itself - will the former couple have taken their advice and how will it work out?

The next day Aziraphale was worried. He’d never set up a date for an angel and a demon before. In point of fact he’d never set up a date for anyone before. He had overridden any misgivings yesterday as he really, really, wanted to try the new restaurant and knew Crowley would keep finding excuses not to go otherwise.

The prospect of a disastrous date between two wholly unsuited beings would, he was sure, convince the demon to come along. However, he personally didn’t want to participate in a cringe-worthy disaster of a date. He wanted, if anything, for the other two to bugger off and leave him and Crowley alone for the evening with the wonderful lobster and maybe a glass of something bubbly.

Crowley, on the other hand, had cheered up considerably. The idea of Hastur having a wash and trying to be *nice* to an angel had him in fits of giggles whenever he thought about it. He tried to hide his evil anticipation. While his angel put up with a certain amount of his evilness without complaint, well with only a mildly disapproving look, he was a little worried he may have pushed it too far this time.

Persuading Hastur the only way to impress Ligur was to have a wash wasn’t that malicious was it? He was pretty confident that the prospect of soap wouldn’t be enough to put Hastur off altogether. He was a little worried that his ‘helpful’ suggestions may have put the kibosh on the two ever getting back together though.

Aziraphale would be cross if it had. The angel was clearly sympathetic to the plight of the former couple and genuinely wanted to help. He thought Hastur was motivated enough to go through with the meal bit at least. He hoped he was anyway. Maybe he would even have attempted to comb his hair.

At exactly 6:30 there was a knock on the door. Crowley started in surprise, despite trying to convince himself of the opposite he hadn’t really expected Hastur to go through with it. After a few seconds there was a second knock. A polite knock without any hint of impatience. It couldn’t actually be Hastur could it?

Outside there was a suppressed growl, quickly followed by a clearing of a throat. This took some time and seemingly necessitated the expulsion of a lot of wet sounding matter. Then came a not wholly unfamiliar voice. “Good evening nice bookshop humans. I am here for the appointment, on time, for eating things”. It was Hastur, he was evidently trying very hard to be polite.

Crowley sniggered. He couldn’t wait to see what sort of mess Hastur would have made of looking smart and tidy. He wanted to draw out the anticipation though. This was too good to rush. “Just a minute, we’re still getting ready”.

He heard an angry growl, quickly suppressed. “Yes, I will wait. Politely. While you get ready”. The words had obviously hurt the speaker. He wasn’t used to being polite. Crowley sniggered again.

The angel bustled in and took one look at Crowley’s face before pursing his lips and sighing in an exasperated way. “What are you up to my dear? Don’t try to deny it, I know there’s something”.

“Hastur’s outside” Crowley managed between sniggers and giggles - sniggles.

“Well why didn’t you say so, you shouldn’t leave him stood outside like that”. In a louder voice he called out “come in Hastur, we’ll be right with you” and bustled off again.

The door opened slowly. It framed a very strange sight. If he squinted Crowley could just about see that the being was Hastur, but it was an incredible transformation. He wore a suit. That was about the only point of connection with the old Hastur.

The suit wasn’t even black. It was a pale minty green that really didn’t suit the demon. Double breasted with dark buttons, the jacket was slightly longer than a normal suit. It had a narrowed waist and was obviously tailored to fit perfectly.

Hastur, however, seemed to make the clothes look awkward and uncomfortable. The way he fidgeted made you think of over-starched collars and itching power. His dark green bow-tie was a little askew and the silk handkerchief peeping out from his top pocket was unevenly folded and hung down limply on one side.

He had a red carnation in his button hole and was holding a bunch of flowers. The gesture of bringing flowers was slightly spoiled by the fact they had obviously been stolen from a cemetery. They still bore the remnants of a tag saying ‘…Angela: Rest In Peace’, but it was the thought that counted.

His hair… Well his hair was slicked back with something scented that made it shine, parted to one side and meticulously combed. The edges still frizzed up a little, but he’d made a decent attempt to tame it. His face was newly scrubbed - so thoroughly scrubbed that, in places, it almost bled - streaks of ground in dirt still remained, but he was, overall, nearly clean.

Crowley wrinkled his nose, the overall smell wasn’t entirely unpalatable either. The main scent was something woody and spicy, exotic and enticing. There were still under-notes of stale tobacco and rancid sweat, but it emphatically wasn’t the usual, eye-wateringly pervasive, Hastur smell. It was almost pleasant.

The tall demon was doing something odd with his face again too. It looked like he had indigestion. The corners of his mouth were upturned so Crowley surmised that this was meant to be a friendly smile. He grinned back, noting the demon hadn’t changed his large clumpy boots, but had somehow managed to polish a shine onto the top front part at least.

The snake-demon was so obviously radiating malicious enjoyment at his discomfort that Hastur couldn’t help but scowl. He kept the attempted smile though, which made him look even more ridiculous. Crowley sniggled again.

Aziraphale came into the shop at this point and saw Hastur. His mouth fell open as he tried hard to comprehend the sight before him. What had happened to the demon?

Hastur took a deep breath. This was it. He needed to talk to an angel. He had, at least, talked to this angel before, but not in his new angel-impressing persona. He needed a dry-run before he met Ligur to make sure it was working. He wanted to gauge the effect. “Hello Azirafff…fally” attempted Hastur with another try at a smile, he leant a little demonic influence to attempt to be charming too.

“Oh!” was all the angel managed as he took in the strange expression and the confusing wave of nauseating energy that washed around him.

The demon growled in disappointment, clearly this hadn’t worked. It was a stupid idea. He threw down the flowers and scowled down at the pavement muttering to himself and looked entirely dejected.

The angel tried again “good evening Duke Hastur. You’re looking…err… nice?”

Hastur looked up suspiciously, but the angel was smiling at him with no hint he was being sarcastic. He tried the smile again, decided it wasn’t working so fell back on his usual look of vague menace instead. “Yes I look *nice* now” he spat the words out and glared belligerently first at the angel and then his demon companion.

Aziraphale continued: “you look lovely, and you bought flowers too - are those for Ligur?”

Hastur hastened to pick up the slightly wilted posy and shook them to clean off some of the dampness, creating a shower of petals as he did so. “I got ‘em from a graveyard - *our* graveyard, where we lurked. They’re a present”. He glared at the angel challengingly.

“Oh that’s..” the angel wasn’t sure what to say - stealing flowers from a graveyard wasn’t what he’d call *nice* but the reason for it was at least thoughtful and Hastur was clearly trying, really trying. He didn’t want to disappoint him. “That’s very thoughtful, I’m sure Ligur will appreciate the gesture”.

He was pleased with that choice of words and Hastur looked satisfied too. The demon spoiled it a little by adding “bastard better appreciate it, the bloody woman kicked me in the shins when I snatched ‘em off her”. Aziraphale shuddered at the image of the demon fighting a bereaved relative for the flowers. He managed not to say anything discouraging.

Crowley caught the angel’s eye mometarily and then dissolved into more sniggles. The tall demon glared at him angrily and Crowley tried, really tried, to bring himself under control. It didn’t work. Hastur was getting cross now too. There was going to be trouble soon if someone didn’t intervene.

“Well then gentlemen I think we had better start out hadn’t we? Don’t want to be late now do we Duke Hastur?”

The angel saved the day, as the two demons stopped glaring at each other and turned to look at him instead. Hastur was clearly angry still. There was a faint whiff of sulphur now, a sharp note above the deep spicy blend of perfumed hair-oil. Aziraphale watched as the demon breathed in deeply and held it in for a long time. His cheeks puffed out somewhat with the effort and he started to resemble the frog Aziraphale had seen on top of his head at the trial. After some tense moments he exhaled and the sulphur smell was gone.

He’d clearly got control of his temper. As if in confirmation he said “yes, we don’t want to be late do we?” in a level calm sounding voice.

The restaurant was only round the corner and, even with the slightly late start, they were early. They were shown to a table near the back with a splendid view of the door and of a large fish tank. The tank had a ‘pod’ of lobsters that Crowley eyed warily. He was sure the biggest one was staring directly at him. He picked up a menu and looked for something he could order that wouldn’t look back at him.

Aziraphale beckoned over a waiter and asked for water and some wine - something dry and white with notes of flint. They discussed the wine choice for some time, while Hastur wriggled about in his chair like he was trying to scratch an itch in the middle of his back. A couple of the buttons seemed to have come off the suit and, out of the corner of his eye, the angel noticed the stitching along the bottom of the jacket had started to come loose too.

Hastur sat with his back to the wall and scrutinised the surroundings of the restaurant suspiciously. Then he scrutinised Crowley suspiciously, finally settling on glaring at the tank of vicious looking clawed creatures. There were a lot of them and they all seemed to be looking at his fellow demon. What were they doing in a food place? They were most unsettling. He watched as one was scooped out by a uniformed human and taken off somewhere.

He poked the angel “wassat?” pointing at the tank.

“Ah, I’m glad you asked. Those are the lobsters. As you can see, very fresh, couldn’t be fresher, still alive in actual fact!”

Hastur wasn’t sure he’d got this right “so we eat them while they’re still alive?” he couldn’t work out how they would do such a thing. As soon as the beasts got their claws out from those little bands they would cause all sorts of trouble. He didn’t fancy getting one anywhere near him, certainly not near his face.

“Oh no, no of course not. They’re errm, well they’ll be humanely dispatched before…” 

Hastur’s eyes lit up: “killed y’mean?”

Crowley smirked at the angel “boiled alive more like” he muttered grinning widely as he saw the angel’s slight frown. Aziraphale loved eating lobster, but was rather squeamish about how they were prepared and cooked.

“Absolutely not. I called ahead and I’ve had it on very good authority, the very best authority, that they kill them first in an entirely painless way. The lobster doesn’t feel a thing”.

Hastur was listening intently “boilin’ works quick - if you heats the water up first that is. Few screams then it’s all over - no time to really enjoy it. It’s only painful for ages if you start ‘em in cold and then heat it up slow like. Then they squeals for ages”.

The angel started to look slightly green. Hastur knew far too much about boiling things alive for his liking. He reminded himself that he was sitting opposite a demon and a decidedly ‘not nice’ demon at that, despite his attempts in the general direction of ‘niceness’.

“They are not boiled alive!” he squeaked out.

“How d’ya kill ‘em then?”Hastur enquired, in as near a polite voice as he would ever be able to manage.

“I believe it is some sort of spike, or a knife, into the head. The die immediately, no suffering. They don’t even know what’s happening. It’s really very quick”.

He was starting to regret the choice of restaurant as Hastur mimed stabbing a lobster with his knife and looked to him for confirmation he’d got the technique right. “When’d I get mine then?” The demon asked.

“No, no - they do that in the kitchen and then they cook them. You don’t have to kill anything Duke Hastur”.

The demon thought about this. He didn’t *have* to kill anything, but then again he liked killing things. “Mebbe I could help. ‘Helping’ being a polite thing to do an’ all. I’ll just do ours” he mimed the stabbing again, killing three imaginary lobsters in quick succession.

Aziraphale hastened to take the knife off him and admonished him. “Really Hastur, we’re meant to be here having a nice meal so you can meet up with your friend and here you are talking about killing things. Have some manners please!”

The demon looked crestfallen. He remembered he was meant to be behaving himself, behaving not-himself in fact, and apparently in human restaurants offering to kill you own dinner wasn’t polite. He’d upset Crowley’s angel too. He had to be appealing to angels. He tried to make himself look appealing.

Aziraphale watched the demon’s face contort itself into a very strange expression, but was relieved that he was showing no signs of attempting to kill anything anymore. The wine arrived and he explained that they were waiting for the fourth member of the party so weren’t ready to order just yet.

They waited. Hastur fidgeted. Somehow the dark colour from the chair seemed to have rubbed patches onto his sleeve. He was looking less pristine by the minute.

Crowley glanced at his watch - it was well after 7pm and there was no sign of Ligur. That wasn’t like an angel. Angels, in his experience, were punctual. He tried to catch the eye of his angel and failed. Eventually he spoke in a hissing whisper hoping that maybe Hastur wouldn’t hear “did you tell him 7 angel, only it’s nearly quarter past - angels aren’t usually late are they?”

Hastur jumped up sending his glass flying. Crowley caught it neatly and glanced around him hoping everyone had seen his ostentatious show of dexterity. No-one had. They were all looking at the demon who appeared to be having some sort of fit. He had stood and was looking about the restaurant with jerky movements to and fro, his black eyes wide and his arms flailing at his side.

“Sit down this minute” instructed the angel in a loud voice with more than a little celestial power behind it. Hastur looked at the angel. He seemed rather cross. The demon considered arguing, but decided that would certainly not be polite. He sat abruptly.

“I’m sure Ligur will be along any minute, probably just got held up or something”.

“Traffic on the A10 again angel?” mumbled Crowley as he looked round the restaurant at the startled diners.

“something like that dear” said the angel absent-mindedly.

Just then a commotion started up near the door. Someone appeared to be attempting to force their way into the restaurant. Someone the staff certainly didn’t want to let in. They couldn’t quite see the someone, but they could smell him.

It was a kind of wet-dog smell and, even at this distance, rather unpleasant. It got stronger and less dog like. By now it was more like the mud from the bottom of a stagnant pond, mixed with the nasty brown liquid that collects at the bottom of bins.

Hastur sniffed deeply. “That’s Ligur” he announced, looking wonderingly at the door. Aziraphale motioned for the two demons to stay where they were and went over to investigate.

Crowley watched as Aziraphale smiled and charmed his way around the disgruntled restaurant staff. Eventually, and not without a substantial monetary contribution towards the later cleaning of the restaurant, they let the dishevelled figure in.

It was indeed the angel-Ligur. However, he looked about as far from being an angel as you could imagine. His clothes were in a worse state than any Hastur had previously owned. As a demon Ligur hadn’t looked too scruffy, now he did.

There were probably trousers under the mud - Aziraphale hoped so at least. The oversized jacket was splashed with at least five different colours of unknown substances and was missing several buttons. What may once have been a white shirt had large patches of brown and steaks of green down the front.

Ligur’s hair was frizzed up into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a lizard with a long dread-lock tail curled around his neck. Lacking in Hastur’s naturally ground-in dirt, he’d obviously tried to literally grind-in some newly acquired dirt.

The overall impression was of someone who had been living in a ditch for several weeks. The smell made your eyes water and his scowl was deep and uninviting.

He caught sight of Hastur and his mouth dropped open. Hastur took the opportunity to try out his rehearsed compliment “Ligur, you look nice”.

Even the demon sounded a little unsure of that statement. He bravely continued with the practised speech “it is lovely to see you like this, so radioactive… radically… radiantly beautiful and angel-y”. 

The demon held out the flowers, still unsure whether his words were quite right. Ligur did, at least, look radiant. The terrible clothes and the dirt smeared face failed to conceal his newly glowing aura. As Hastur spoke it flashed through several different colours and the glittery, sparkly bits expanded to fill virtually the entire space in the restaurant, making the air shimmer and translucent colours shine brightly around his head.

“You look terrible” rumbled the glowing angel, scowling very deeply at the tall demon and trying an experimental growl that didn’t quite come off. He took the proffered flowers and glared at them. “You nick these?” he asked belligerently.

Hastur was grinning widely and evidently couldn’t quite manage to get any more full sentences out. “Cemetery - grave flowers - from a human - dead people - y’know - graveyard… *our* graveyard”.

Ligur grinned back and the two just looked at each other for a long while. Ligur then frowned again. Hastur looked weird to him, very weird. Why was he wearing such odd clothes, and what was that peculiar smell?

“Why’ya come ‘ere dressed up like an angel?” he asked.

Hastur grunted back “it was ‘is idea” indicating Crowley “said I gotta look smart and clean to impress an angel. Now you come here dressed up like a demon. Why’d you do that?”

Ligur indicated Aziraphale “it was ‘is idea. Said I gotta look all dirty and evil to impress a demon”.

The tall demon waved a hand at himself, inviting Ligur to take a good look. Then he cocked his head to one side and asked nervously: “are you impressed?”

Ligur considered his answer. He could feel a little angel voice somewhere in the back of his brain trying to get him to say something nice. He ignored it. “Nah, y’look like a complete tit”.

Hastur nodded sagely. He knew he looked like a complete tit, but he thought that’s what angels liked. He turned to Crowley and said “you’re a bastard aren’t you?” Crowley’s sniggles got out of control and he had to hide his head under a napkin, banging one fist on the table. This was too much!

Ligur asked curiously “do I look impressive?”

The other demon considered. He didn’t think Ligur looked impressive exactly. No, it was something slightly different to that. He searched for the word. “You look like crap”.

The dirt encrusted angel considered this for a while and had to agree, he did indeed look like crap. It was nice that Hastur had noticed all the effort he’d put in. “Wanna kiss?” He asked.

Hastur nodded and scooted out from behind the table to where Ligur stood. He smiled a full genuine smile that didn’t at all make him look like he had indigestion. Then they kissed.

Aziraphale sighed happily. It was so romantic.

Crowley peered out from under the napkin, caught his angel’s eye, and grinned.

Then he addressed the new couple in a serious voice. “I don’t really think they want you in here y’know? The smell I think… and the dirt of course”. He looked at the thunderous glare the waiters were giving their table. “Maybe you’d be better finding a cemetery somewhere?”

Hastur was nodding, but Ligur wasn’t sure “I can’t lurk y’know - even with all this dirt I keep glowing” he sounded very depressed.

His companion looked about him at the silvery, shimmery, gold and coloured speckles. He waved a hand through the air and watched as little green swirls followed his fingers. Little green swirls almost like tiny frogs. Suddenly he didn't care that Ligur couldn't lurk.

Hastur took Ligur's hand and pulled him in for a hug “dunt you worry. I can lurk for both of us”.

Aziraphale wiggled his shoulders at the nearly unbearable cuteness of it. He beamed at the demon/angel couple and then at his demon. The plan had worked - the two were clearly back together. The other part of the plan - the plan that involved a romantic candle-lit lobster dinner just for him and Crowley - looked like it was going to work out too. He couldn’t be happier.

As the celestial/infernal couple departed, Crowley looked back at the menu. He was less than happy. There must be something on there that didn’t have eyes surely? Then he looked up at his angelic companion and smiled. If Aziraphale was happy then he would be happy too - even if it involved being stared at by a reluctant dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this - hope it amuses


End file.
